Time names Steve Jobs one of the 20 most influential Americans of all time

Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs has been named as one of the 20 most influential Americans of all time. The acknowledgement comes from Time which named its top 20 “trailblazers, visionaries and cultural ambassadors who defined a nation.”

His business career started where all the best Silicon Valley stories begin: with two pals fiddling with computers in a garage. While IBM and other large firms were creating huge mainframe machines, Jobs and his software-genius partner, Steve Wozniak, cooked up the first small personal computer, the Apple II. Then, thanks to a visit to Xerox’s local research lab, Jobs got a glimpse of the future: a computer with a graphical design interface, operated by a mouse. Inspired, he drove his Apple team to create a giant stride forward in digital design, the Macintosh computer.

To put this into perspective, some of the other people included in the top 20 list of most influential Americans of all time are Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander G Bell and the Wright Brothers.

It seems quite appropriate that Alexander G Bell is included in the list alongside Steve Jobs. Alexander G Bell invented the first telephone device way back in 1876 and we all know how Steve Jobs changed the face of cell phones and smartphones with the release of the first iPhone back in 2007.

Reader comments

Time names Steve Jobs one of the 20 most influential Americans of all time

"It seems quite appropriate that Alexander G Bell is included in the list alongside Steve Jobs."

I disagree with you here. A guy who pioneered sound communication technology and devoted so much time and energy to helping the deaf is along side a guy who stole other peoples ideas and was moderately innovative at best.

Why is Albert Einstein included in the list of most influential Americans? Einstein was born and educated in Germany, did all his relativity work in Switzerland and only gained American citizenship when he has 61 years old, and after that he did no relevant scientific work. Einstein also kept his Swiss citizenship until his death.

How about including Benjamin Franklin, a true American genius, instead?

This is a joke right? Ben Franklin isn't on the list? A man who advanced science & discovery a thousand fold beyond Steve Jobs' shallow imagination & instead of patenting 'HIS' ideas (remember how Jobs took credit for all kinds of things he didn't do), Ben Franklin just gave it all away to help mankind overall. He even went so far as to present some of his work to the British Parliament. How's that for magnanimous?

Instead Time magazine chooses to honor a petty, soulless tyrant who was terrorist to most people's emotions & had bad hygiene? Has the Mac, iPod, iPad, iPhone or MacBook managed to enhance the lives of the poor or impoverished? No silicon valley company has. They have conveniently chosen to ignore those people like the rest of us. How many impoverished kids have benefited from iTunes? I think that about sums up the stupidity of Time's editors & this list.

Its funny how many of you are bashing on Steve Jobs yet the reason why this site exists as well as to why you all are here on this site is because of Steve Jobs lol. Lets see one of you try to do what Steve Jobs did. Hello? Anybody?
Exactly lol

This site exists because of something called the Internet, and Steve Jobs had nothing to do with that. There are blogs and websites dedicated to the Klan and to Mickey Mouse as well, do we have to give them credit for the web and consider them influential too?
Exactly lol

A pretty ridiculous list. I'm sorry but any list of influential Americans that doesn't include the likes of Benjamin Franklin i find questionable. Not to mention the likes of James Madison, John Marshall, Thomas Paine. Olive Wendell Holmes, Justice Earl Warren. There are plenty of questionable names on their including Louis Armstrong and Steve Jobs, whom i like personally but they aren't top 20 material by any means. Especially considering the omissions. And there's a very credible arguement that if Gate's and his foundation have done a ton more in terms of cancer, poverty and AIDs to help the world then Jobs with an a bunch of phones and ipods. But neither should be on this list. I'm sorry.